A Modified ISO 9026 Software Quality Model to Measuring COTS Components

摘要

The quality of software is essential to an organization in making their commercial software. Good or poor quality to software plays an important role to some systems such as embedded systems, real-time systems, and control systems. As Component-based Software Development (CBSD) starts to be effectively used, some software vendors have commenced to successfully sell and licensed COTS components. One of the most critical tasks in CBSD is the selection of the COTS components that meet the user’s requirements. Several models have been developed to help different type of user with quality issues. Since 2000, the construction of software of software started to depend on generated or manufactured components and it gives rise to new challenge for assessing quality, because these components introduce new concepts such as configurability, Reusability, availability and better quality. Our proposals have shown how to deal with the functional aspects of this evaluation process. Although, there is a lack of appropriate quality models that allow an effective assessment of COTS components. In this paper we propose a new quality model for CBSD based on ISO 9126 that defines a set of quality attributes and their associated metrics for the effective evaluation of COTS components. The goal of the new model is to guide organizations that are in the process of building COTS — based system to evaluate and choose the appropriate products and that is essential to be success of the entire system. In this paper, some new features added in previously existing model (ISO 9126 AND Dromey model) for better evaluation of COTS components. In the proposed model, new high level characteristic portability is inculcated along with some sub — characteristic such as reusability, adaptability and_ replaceability. Some new sub characteristics also added such as scalability, configurability, stability and self— contained.